Meditation practicums

Ocassional workshops in 2017

Saturday afternoons 1:00 - 5:00

Next Chicago workshop: September or October (tentatively)

Buddha's life story was intimate with Nature in countless ways. It's hard to imagine his Awakening & Liberation without the lessons and inspirations of Nature. After all, Nature is Dhamma. With Spring's arrival, we can find inspiration for our own awakening: bird calls, tree buds, flower blossoms, rain showers, and T-storms. All with their inner corollaries and companions.

On this Saturday afternoon, we will share Nature inspired practices that help us to attune to the rustlings of Healthy Nature within. We will apply traditional meditation skills of mindfulness, imagination, focus, and healing energy in practices that refresh and rejuvenate.

This seventh session in our series will continue with an experiential format of guided practices, followed by explanations and clarification of questions. Suitable for beginners and experienced meditators. We will adjust to the needs of those present. We aim to help you take these practices home and into your busy lives.

On-going series of workshops organized by friends of Liberation Park with support from Insight Chicago.

Each workshop offers 3 or 4 practices that make up a well-rounded and well-grounded meditation practice. Guided practices are followed by interactive instruction and Q/A. Suitable for new, experienced, and recovering meditators.

The recent election and its aftermath have been deeply troubling for many us. We struggle to make sense of what happened, find our grounding, and respond skilfully. Many of us are still shocked, sometimes we point fingers, and occasionally we despair. Yet many of us knew that whoever won the election, the nasty wounds that have been exposed would remain and require long-term healing. Similarly, financial stresses, serious illness, death of loved ones, family conflict, and climate disruption create storms externally and internally. Buddha-Dhamma and the fruits of its practice offer invaluable resources for weathering these storms as they blow through us. This series will present practical strategies for living with the inevitable storms of life and death.

We will review and test drive practices that, when sufficiently cultivated, give us the strength, balance, compassion, and wisdom to weather the storms that life inevitably contains, including death. While we have responsibility towards the outer storms, we have much more immediate influence upon the inner storms.

The format will be a series of guided practices that are then debriefed together. Background explanations will be given as needed and questions will be raised and explored.